YTS-23 cleaned - no parts left over!

[DavidUK]

Cleaned the YTS-23 yesterday/today.

Complete disassembly apart from removing the springs or pads, the first time I've done this and a little nerve wracking!
On close inspection it looked as though someone had spayed it with spray mount and then shaved over it!

Went well though, and I only had to take off a few keys/rods when re-assembling due to not doing it in the right order.

Some of the pads looked a little past their sell by date.....



Once off the sax I coated them in Auto Glym Leather Care Cream and left overnight to soak in. I've used this successfully before on sorry looking pads when sprucing up the Old Russian Tenor.

Body and key metalwork cleaned with electroplate cleaner and isopropyl alchohol (not mixed!).

New cork needed on two palm keys and a few elsewhere. Stopped the clattering which had been there previously. Once assembled I used a cocktail stick to sparingly oil all the keys/rods with Selmer Key Oil.

All in all a pleasing if rather time consuming pastime. Off to Connolly-MIR to get a few dings sorted in the week then it'll be almost as good as new.

 

[Ads]

Cleaned the YTS-23 yesterday/today.

Complete disassembly apart from removing the springs or pads, the first time I've done this and a little nerve wracking!
On close inspection it looked as though someone had spayed it with spray mount and then shaved over it!

That`s Vile stuff, what was it in the end and did it come off without damaging the laquer .. are the pads now ok ? . nice Work BTW, is it a keeper ? .

 

[Colin the Bear]

It's just a 3d jig saw. Each piece will only fit in one place. Take a few pictures as you dis assemble and make a few notes. You could video the strip down and play it back in reverse.

You could have just pressure washed it. (joke, don't do it. lol)

Does the leather treatment not make the pads sticky?

 

[DavidUK]

I've used the Auto Glym (by appt. to HRH Charlie) for 20yrs on my leather car upholstery and it's never sticky. What doesn't soak in is wiped off with, in this case, some kitchen roll and the pads feel lovely and soft and dry. There's a limit to what it can save but the 23's pads just looked yucky as some green stuff had started to grow on a few of them!

As for it being a keeper, I'm not sure. I picked up my Carmichael after the 23 and the latter seems rather lighter. That's a bonus in some ways but it gives me a slight feeling of it being inadequate? But then I play it and forget that thought!

The Grassi Tenor is due for collection in the week, so we'll see....

 

[kevgermany]

If you're going to do this again, make sure you put all the point screws back in the hole they came from. On better saxes they wear in, having started the same, on cheapos they're often filed to fit....

 

[DavidUK]

If you're going to do this again, make sure you put all the point screws back in the hole they came from. On better saxes they wear in, having started the same, on cheapos they're often filed to fit....

Yes, I did. I pressed them into a piece of card with a rough diagram of the sax and its rods. So all went back in their original holes.

When re-installing them I tightened and tested for play in the rod. When the play just disappeared I stopped adjustment. On one, the long octave key, the key was a snug fit in itself with no screws inserted so I tightened each screw until the key started to bind and backed off until it was free again. Hopefully this was the right way! Strangely I didn't refer to Steve's book at any point. We'll see if that was a mistake!

 

[DavidUK]

Here are the same pads after....



And before again....

 

[jbtsax]

Nice work. Keep us posted on whether the pads become sticky with that treatment---especially the G#. My technique on the "headless" Yamaha pivot screws is to remove the spring, tighten one of the screws until the key no longer falls by its own weight, and then back it off 1/4 turn.

I used to think the way Kevin suggests, but now I am not so sure. In the battle of soft brass vs hard steel, it is the brass that wears over time and not the steel. I have inspected pivot screws from several vintage saxes I have overhauled under magnification and can not tell one from another, however the point about pivot screws found on cheap, poorly made Chinese "SSO's" (saxophone shaped objects) is well taken.

 

[DavidUK]

Nice work. Keep us posted on whether the pads become sticky with that treatment---especially the G#. My technique on the "headless" Yamaha pivot screws is to remove the spring, tighten one of the screws until the key no longer falls by its own weight, and then back it off 1/4 turn.

I used to think the way Kevin suggests, but now I am not so sure. In the battle of soft brass vs hard steel, it is the brass that wears over time and not the steel. I have inspected pivot screws from several vintage saxes I have overhauled under magnification and can not tell one from another, however the point about pivot screws found on cheap, poorly made Chinese "SSO's" (saxophone shaped objects) is well taken.

Yes, it probably needed 1/4 to 1/2 turn backing off on each screw, and they were all set whilst unsprung. Common sense really.

 

[kevgermany]

I used to think the way Kevin suggests, but now I am not so sure. In the battle of soft brass vs hard steel, it is the brass that wears over time and not the steel. I have inspected pivot screws from several vintage saxes I have overhauled under magnification and can not tell one from another...

Yes, I agree - the screws don't wear that way, but there's a period of bedding in between the screw and the hinge rod. Different screw, slighlty different contact leads to extra wear on the hinge rod at first. Sorry, I should have been more precise.

Years ago I asked my father, a mechanical engineer, why the soft metal, not the hard metal wore. And why they used a combination of soft and hard metals in bearings. He told me that metals of similar hardness wear fastest because nohting gives way, so they tend to grind each other wawy. But under heavy load (e.g. car engines) the microscopic roughness heats and welds together, then breaks off, making things worse. So they use a soft/hard metal combination. The soft metal adjusts/moulds itself to the hard metal and so inital bedding in is minimised. Following that you can get a build up of grit in the rubbing surfaces. This tends to hit the soft metal and get embedded. At which stage the harder metal starts to wear more than the soft because the embedded grit is harder than the hard metal. But afik, this doesn't really come into play on saxes. He also mentioned that a good lubricant stops metal to metal contact and thus wear. It's the breakdown in lubricants that causes wear on the bearing surfaces. This is a good argument for regular sax servicing, even if you think it doesn't need it, cos oils loose their lubricating properties as they become oxidised and also as they dry out over time. So as the oil deteriorates, so wear increases, but long after this you notice the sax doesn't play that well.... But by then the damage is done.

 

[JTHANK]

Thanks for sharing the tip on using Auto Glym Leather Care Cream! I have some older pads on my horn that I plan to replace but I would give this a shot before I do that.

 

[Jane M L]

Yes, many thanks for the Auto Glym info. Is it the cleaner, or the Balm? I'm looking on amazon and can't find the Leather Care Cleaner Cream.

 

[DavidUK]

Yes, many thanks for the Auto Glym info. Is it the cleaner, or the Balm? I'm looking on amazon and can't find the Leather Care Cleaner Cream.

Look for "Auto Glym Leather Care Cream". Don't know that Amazon sells it?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKMHfHgwbfU

 

[Colin the Bear]

I suspect this is similar.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lord-Sheraton-Leather-Balsam-75ml/dp/B000TAOS7M

Saddle soap is amazing on leather.